


Of Boys and Bats

by haveyouevereverfeltlikethis



Series: Daemon AUs [1]
Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Alternate Universe - His Dark Materials Fusion, Daemon Feels, Daemon Separation, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-22 08:48:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8279959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haveyouevereverfeltlikethis/pseuds/haveyouevereverfeltlikethis
Summary: “A robin for Robin,” her Daemon eyed Ruxandra with sharp yellow eyes, “how curious. Which came first, the bird or the boy?”





	

**Author's Note:**

> I love Drabble Daemon AUs so have another. It needs to be edited

He had been born on the first day of winter, in a train cabin too small for its many occupants, the cold Polish country-side flashing by the windows. He cried with healthy lungs the moment he breached and John Grayson and his dog Daemon stopped their pacing in the halls at the sound.

“It’s a boy,” Mary Grayson breathed out happily. The latest edition to the Grayson troupe was a stunningly healthy baby boy; with his father’s blue eyes and a small tuft of wispy black hair.

“Richard,” John decided as he smiled up at his brother, “we’ll name him Richard.”

Richard John Grayson’s Daemon appeared not long after. A wriggling puppy almost as large as the newborn, a coat of black and mismatched eyes that shone in the light of the dawn, “Ruxandra,” Mary’s weary hummingbird Daemon proclaimed, “she shall be Ruxandra .”

* * *

 

It’s just before his ninth birthday when he starts to glow under the moonlight. At first, he’d thought it was the reflection of the lights on his skin until Ruxandra began to glow as well. His mother took one look at him and sighed; as if it was something she’d been expecting.

“My little birds,” she brushed his hair from his face before adjusting his leotard so that it rested straight across his chest, “there’s something I had hoped to share with you when you were older. I’m a witch, from the northern clans. I had hoped it wouldn’t have passed on-“

“But boys can’t be Witches,” Dick argued as he looked at his mother in confusion.

“I was the seventh daughter of the seventh daughter,” she pulled him into her lap, hugging him tight, “it’s a powerful thing. You may…feel things that other boys don’t.”

“Like what?” Ruxandra was perched on the low hanging hoop still out from last night’s show.

“Like the moon and the stars,” her Daemon Kiki whispered in his ear, “or when the winds change and the seasons move. You’ll feel it in your gut.”

“But what does that mean?” Ruxandra asked, voice high and worried, “will we change?”

“No, my little birds,” Mary shushed them, “you’ll still be you. Just extra special.”

Dick squirmed in her lap, “why did you leave the clan? Witches live in clans, right?”

Mary had laughed, her warm breath tickling his bare neck, making Ruxandra ruffle her feathers in response.

“I fell in love with a marvellous man-“ she glanced up at the high top, where his father was swinging on the trapeze with his uncle, “-and decided that I wanted to start a clan of my own.”

She tickled his sides, and he giggled and squirmed, but was far too content to move from her hold.

 The last stop on the American tour had been Gotham—a city soaked in clouds and black ice. Dick had overheard a man earlier in the day saying bad things to Haley, but his mother had told him not to worry. He trusted her—she’s never been wrong before.

“The world famous Flying Grayson’s have toured the globe, pulling off stunts that most of us can only dream of doing. From thirty-five to nine these marvellous masters of the air have captivated Europe for decades! Haley’s Circus is proud to present; The Flying Grayson’s in: the Flight of Death!”

It’s just like the other tours. His mother and father begin a dance on the wind, light as birds as they catch each other. His cousin John joins them while his Aunt and Uncle jump with them. Before Dick knows it the tent is filled with screaming and the sound of vicious snaps that echo like thunder.

Ruxandra was flying low as a bird, and he’s rushing down the ladder feeling too the ground. He watched as his families Daemons began to disappear into golden dust that was swept up by the wind. Dicks on the ground before he knows it, kneeling in something warm and sticky. Their bodies are piled atop one another, a mess of groans and bones and  _oh so much blood_.

Ruxandra is crying and keening as Dick shouts in Romanian, “ _Ma! Pa! Uncle Rick!”_ he can’t tell who’s who in the mess of bodies. It’s all bones and blood, and he thinks he can see his mother’s eyes, but they were vacant and dead and unseeing. Johnny’s arm, with the tattoo of the High Top on the wrist, wasn’t anywhere near his body and he squeezes the warm hand, and it came back a vivid red, “ _John! Johnny!”_

There was gold dust spiralling up into the air and disintegrating as it went. Dick watched in horror as his father’s Golden Retriever, Trevor, let out a small whine. Trevor was a few meters away, laying on his side panting and crying until suddenly he was gone as well in a  _puff_ of golden dust that dispersed as quickly as it came.

Ruxandra is fluttering above, body splattered in something red and sticky. Just like his hands. His leotard was wet, and his face was as well, and there was still so much  _screaming_. Someone grabbed him around the waist, and he struggled, his hands reaching for his mother’s hand (he can see her wedding ring, sticking out from the tangled mess of bodies), “ _Ma! No! Mom-“_

He’s pulled away with a final  _tug_. Ruxandra is still circling the bodies, yelling in Romanian at the figures. The blood (their blood) is dripping off him as whoever is holding him around the waist sets him down. Dick tries to get past them, he needs to check on his Ma, but a strong arm stops him. Something dark blocks his view of his family and Ruxandra is forced to fly closer, the pain of their distance too great.

“You don’t need to see this,” a gravelly voice tells him. He manages to look up, and he sees a stern looking mouth and white lenses for eyes. Distantly he knows its Batman, the man his father and uncle had laughed about earlier that day (“a man in a bat costume” they had chortled over coffee, “and they say  _we’re_ the carnies”).

“ _I need to make sure they’re okay,”_ Dick urges, still trying to get past the man, mind to muddled to translate to English “ _Johnny doesn’t like blood-“_

He doesn’t realise he’s shaking until something black and smooth was draped over his shoulders. Numbly he stops trying to get passed Batman and grips it, feeling the soft woven fabric beneath his hands. Ruxandra is perched on his shoulder, nestling into his neck as she searched for comfort. He picked her up and sunk into a seated position, whispering to her over and over again “ _this is just a dream.”_

Ruxandra is warm in his hands, but she’s still sticky with blood. He begins smoothing her feathers, pressing them down as he goes, trying to get rid of it. The blood at the front of her chest won’t come out. Why won’t it come out? Ruxandra is crying as hard as he is as they both try to get it out. Is it Moms, or dads or maybe it’s his aunts? There’s just so much of it-

A hand reaches out and grips his wrist, stopping him from trying to clean her feathers, “that’s her plume. It’s red.”

Ruxandra shudders and says dully, “ _I think I’ve settled, Dickie.”_

Batman sits by his side until the police arrive. He leaves the cape behind, and Dick refuses to let go of it.

(“It looks like a bear attack,” an officer comments as he stood on the edge of the scene, “bodies don’t splatter like this.”

“Maybe one alone, but four a top one another? It’s like squishing a cooked egg. Everything breaks eventually,” his Daemon replies and Dick wishes that he couldn’t understand them).

* * *

 

The social worker- a stern looking woman with a thick American accent- speaks to them like they’re stupid. Slow words, elongated vowels, and exaggerated hand motions. They’re still covered in blood, but its dry and flaky, caking his hair down across his eyes.

“We can understand you,” He grit out, but his accent is thick and his voice breaks from crying. Ruxandra buried deep in the folds of the black cape, quiet and shaking as she cries, “you don’t need to talk like we’re stupid.”

(Because they’re not. They know English and Romanian. They were taught about the stars from Clarice the Contortionist, math from the clowns and geography from Haley. They’re  _not_ stupid.)

“We know that Richard,” the golden retriever looks so much like Trevor that it’s painful. But this woman isn’t like his father.

His father is dead, and Trevor is gone.

* * *

 

They end up in a juvenile prison. The foster system in Gotham was so overrun with orphans they simply have nowhere else to put them. He’s ushered there after the funerals by the social worker who frowns as she watched Ruxandra refuse to leave Dick’s jacket. Haley is crying as he embraced Dick for a few minutes, swearing he’ll do what he can to get Dick and Ruxandra back where they belong.

(He’s told by the councillor it was meant to be a situation that lasted no longer than a week. But someone put in a motion for guardianship. The state doesn’t want to waste the recourses to move him again).

Dick is an outcast for so many reasons. For one, he’s settled. Everyone in the yard has Daemons who change to be big and threatening. Dick and Ruxandra sit separate from everyone, the little robin preferring to hide inside his shirt. Some of the older kids Daemons had already made a game out of trying to catch his little bird Daemon. The new orphans were smaller than the rest of the kids in general, built for contortion and twists, not brute fights. They’re weak; they don’t have Gotham buried in their bones and stuck in their lungs.

Juvie is a hell hole of strict rules and enforcement. It’s not the holding prisons where kids wait for sentencing. Gotham’s Boy School, they call it. It’s not like any school they’ve ever seen.

He can’t tumble or twist or jump without being told off. He shares a cell (room, Ruxandra corrects him, a room) with a boy two years older who snores and keeps his deadly looking viper Daemon twirled around the bed posts when they sleep. When he sees Dick writing in Romanian to his Uncle Rick, the only survivor of the accident who is laid up in hospital in a coma, he laughs and calls him a witch because of the fact the boys too dumb to recognise a different language.

It spreads like wildfire. Witch, Circus Freak, Orphan, Gypsy, all the names interchange until Dick learns to stay in his cell unless forced out into the yard. It’s a tiny yard. No bigger than a circus tent. The Juvie is in the centre of Gotham City. The air is foul, the traffic is loud and the night is always too bright for stars.

Ruxandra is quieter than she’d ever been, always touching him in some way, refusing to leave his side for even the slightest moment. At night she sleeps in the hollow of his collarbone and hums the lullaby his mother always used to sing,

* * *

 

A month later he’s told to go and gather his things and meet a strange man at the front entrance (the man who wants to adopt him, he’s told). He gathers up his meagre possessions and leaves before his roommate can return to ask questions. Dick’s ushered into a sleek long car by someone who introduces himself as Bruce Wayne. He says the name like it’s meant to mean something. It doesn’t mean anything to Dick.

Dick felt too dirty to be in a car this nice. His hands kept nervously running over Ruxandra’s feathers as the little Daemon shivered ever so slightly at the sight of Wayne’s sharp eyed feline Daemon. Before long Ruxandra’s buried in his oversized second-hand jumper out of sight of the feline Daemons yellow eyes.

“This is Belinda,” Wayne’s voice was so loud through the car that Dick jumped, Ruxandra letting out a little squawk at the movement. Wayne cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable at the silence.

Dick had never been a shy boy, so he revealed, “her names Ruxandra.”

“That’s an unusual name,”

“It means dawn,” he divulged, albeit awkwardly as he watched the landscape go by.

Mr. Wayne nodded and fell back into silence. Ruxandra hummed the song against his stomach, and he didn’t miss the way Belinda’s ears twitched in their direction.

* * *

 

The house was  _huge_. It looked like one of the old castles his dad had taken him to in Germany. Open brick covered in ivy and fixed with heavy wooden doors. An elderly gentleman opened the door as the long car pulled away out of the drive.

“This is Alfred Pennyworth,” Mr. Wayne gestured to the elderly man and the small Yorkshire terrier by his side, “and Edwina.”

“Pleasure to meet you, sir,” the man’s accent was crisp and sharp as he ushered the two of them in, “I have tea set up in the parlour.”

Dick followed the two of them into a sun lit room down a hall. A plate of sandwiches and a pitcher of something sweet looking was laid out on a small table between two plush looking leather couches. He sat on the edge of one carefully, feeling too out of place among the rich furnishes.

“Eat, please,” Bruce gestured to the between them. Dick took a sandwich and nibbled on the edges, but his stomach began to growl at the sudden influx of good tasting food. Before he knew it, he was inhaling the sandwiches, washing it all down with the ice tea in the pitcher. Mr. Wayne didn’t seem too bothered, he instead pulled out a set of papers from his briefcase and began flicking through them, signing them with a flourish occasionally.

By the time Dick had finished eating, the sun had begun to set outside the window. He wiped his hands on his jeans before letting Ruxandra fly down into them. The little bird looked at Dick to the elder man, expressing what she wanted without even saying a word.

“So that’s it?” Dick resisted the urge to scuff his shoes on the floor, “we just live with you?”

Mr. Wayne set down his pen and sent a panicked glance to the Butler. He must not have gotten the answer he wanted because he sighed and said;

“Batman told me about what happened to your parents,” Dick looked at the floor, suddenly finding the patterns in the rug very fascinating, “Commissioner Gordon informed me about the overflow in the foster system and between the two of them they convinced me to take you in.”

The butler cleared his throat, and Mr. Wayne continued, “You can stay with us, everything that is mine will be yours. It does mean that you will gain a lot of media attention, not all of it good,” he looked down to Ruxandra who shuddered under the gaze, “you will be expected to behave a certain way and follow certain rules.”

“Yes-sir,” he nodded his understanding (even though he understood nothing).

“Alfred, would you show Dick his room, please?”

His room was up a grand staircase and down a long hall. It had to be three times the size of his parent’s trailer. A large king size bed rested against a wall, a window looked out onto the grounds, and a fire crackled softly from the hearth on the opposite wall. Edwina trotted in to close the curtains, pulling on the cord to drag them shut. Alfred opened up a door, allowing Dick to see the large bathroom inside.

“Master Wayne has never been good with emotions, I’m afraid,” Alfred commented as he moved to another door and revealed a walk in wardrobe full of clothes and towels. He collected some of the items and began laying them out on the bed, “but he means well.”

Ruxandra snorted in his ear in disbelief.

“We shall leave you to retire for the evening, Master Richard,” the butler said promptly when he realised he wasn’t going to get a reply, “if you need anything, just press that button beside the lamp.”

Ruxandra finally appeared, stretching her wings and inspecting every crevice of the room she could.

“ _At least we have our own bathroom_ ,” she said which made Dick laugh at the oddness of it all.

* * *

 

In his nightmares, there’s blood everywhere. It falls from the sky like raindrops, while the wind pulls at him, tugging fast and hard like it’s trying to tell him something.

He always wakes up before he figures out what it needs.

* * *

 

Two months of awkward breakfasts, awkward dinners and horrible attempts at conversation later Dick finds out what makes Bruce so….odd. Bruce and Belinda were always busy. Always getting bruises and disappearing at night. He and Ruxandra had been outside exploring the grounds, flipping through the well-manicured grass and past Alfred’s small vegetable plot.

“ _We could leave_ ,” Ruxandra suddenly said as she swooped down. They always spoke in Romanian, or if they were particularly bored, the Witch Language which they scrounged from the internet. They told themselves it was to help them remember their father. But it was the only thing that felt like theirs anymore—something Bruce hadn’t given them or the Grayson’s death had taken away.

“ _Why do you say that?”_ Dick huffed as he leant against the dilapidated bricks of an old well.

“ _Don’t act like you haven’t been thinking about it,_ ” Ruxandra landed on his folded knee, head cocked to the side as she looked at him, “ _you hate it here.”_

“ _No I don’t,”_ he glared at her, “ _it’s better than Juvie. Bruce isn’t that bad. He’s trying his best.”_

Ruxandra’s feathers ruffled in the breeze, “ _We could go back to Pop Haley.”_

Dick picked at a thread at the bottom of his shirt as he thought,  _“it’s only been two months. And they’ve been so nice to us. We can’t just-“the_  stones beneath his back shifted so suddenly that Dick hardly had time to cry out before he was tumbling into the well. His chest began to hurt as Ruxandra got further away. Closing his eyes, he wondered if this what his family felt as they fell—a weightlessness that made his heart stop.

Until suddenly he slammed into something hard. The breath was forced from his lungs, and he opened his eyes to see Batman staring back at him.

“We should’ve boarded that well up the first time I fell down it,” was all the Dark Knight had said before Dick passed out.

* * *

 

That’s how he learnt who Batman was. It took only a week to convince him to let him fight with him. It was almost as if Batman was waiting for a partner. Alfred didn’t approve, and even Bruce seemed to hesitate because of his age. But he had to do this. This was the only way to find Tony Zucco.

But first came test. So many tests. Fitness, academics, pattern recognition—all of it tested to see what his advantages were.

“It’s impressive that someone your age knows two languages,” Bruce mused, and Dick took that as a compliment, but his cheeks still tinted pink as he corrected;

“Three languages. We know three languages. Well, two fluently but we’re trying to learn the third.”

His mentor raised an eyebrow, something Dick had learnt to interpret as ‘oh really?’

“My dad taught me the Romanian, and my Mom taught me English, but she was a Witch-“the second eyebrow rose up to join the first. Had Dick not mentioned that before? “-so we tried to learn the language.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” Belinda asked.

“Because witches aren’t accepted,” Ruxandra spoke up when Dick found he couldn’t. The little bird was coming out of her shell more now, no longer hiding in the folds of his clothes, even speaking on the rare occasion, “the kids at the juvie didn’t like us for it. Said we were thieves and dirty. And that Vicky lady already said bad stuff about Roma. We didn’t want to….we thought you wouldn’t want us if you found out we had Witches blood.”

Bruce looked to Alfred with an expression that Dick had learnt to interpret as ‘help, the boys having some sort of emotion.’

“She was the seventh daughter of the seventh daughter,” Dick explained, “I can’t be a witch because only girls can be. But she said that we might be like her”

“Interesting,” was all the man had said before he continued to go through the results.

One night, when Dick is eating dinner in the small private dining room, he begins to glow. He doesn’t think much of it. He’s warm from the hearty food, made from a recipe Alfred had found from an old woman at the market. Ruxandra is nestled against his arm, lazily reading a novel Edwina had suggested while Dick turned the pages on her command. He doesn’t realise the warm feeling is something more until Bruce walks into this kitchen and asks;

“Why are you glowing?”

Belinda sniffs at him curiously as she passed. Dick looked up to the open window which allowed in the soft breeze of spring and offered a shrug.

“It must be the witching hour,”

(Bruce doesn’t laugh at his joke and instead explains that the witching hour is midnight. It only makes Dick laugh harder at the man. Part of him wonders what kind of childhood Bruce must’ve had because he hardly ever laughs at jokes).

* * *

 

Dick studied all he could on witches. He spent his evenings while Batman was out reading the ancient tomes that Bruce had managed to buy for him on their culture and language. They learnt about the clans, the days of old where Witches could move between worlds and ruled the skies. The days of the Witch Queens and their immortality, before the hatred of the humans came. The clans became smaller. Their health dwindled with their lifespans lowering to the hundreds, not the thousands of years. World War Two saw them rounded up out of the occupied territory and sent away with the rest of the undesirables.

They lived in the small communities that were guarded and secret. Keeping to their borders as they moved from country to country. Most humans thought them extinct. It made them sad to think that they had been ushered off their lands and out casted just because of what they could do— because they let their Daemons roam free and flew on the winds.

“No wonder they didn’t want Ma to leave,” Ruxandra was nestled in the crook of his arm as they read, “they wanted her to stay. They don’t want to turn out like the Bears.”

The armoured bears of Svalbard were nothing more than a children’s tale now. The Bears who made their Daemons out of metal, piece by piece.  They were hunted for sport in the years before Dick were born. There hadn’t been one sighted in over two decades.

“They won’t,” Dick promised while Ruxandra sighed in agreement.

* * *

 

Three months into his training the weather in Gotham took a surprising turn. The sky was clear during the night, the full moon the only light needed to illuminate the Wayne Manor grounds. Bruce and Dick were sitting out in the garden, sipping at ice-tea in relative silence while Belinda and Ruxandra lazed on the warm grass.

It was nice. Bruce had cancelled any training for the night and had even given Dick double dessert. He was full of Alfred’s cooking and feeling lethargic in the heat of the evening.  The moon above was so full that Dick could feel it humming through him, making his skin glow ever so slightly. He may not have been a Witch, but sometimes he had to wonder how much of his mother’s blood ran through his veins.

Dick looked at Bruce out of the corner of his eye. The man was wearing only a shirt and a pair of light cotton pyjama pants. Dick could see the bruises that littered his body from patrol last night, along with the older puckered scars that were white with age. A question that he and Ruxandra had tried to find the answer to for months tickled the tip of his tongue.

“Bruce…..” Dick fiddled with the condensation on the outside of his glass, “why do you…why do you do this?”

The older man, for what it was worth, didn’t look too surprised at the question. It was almost as if he had been expecting it because he set his glass down on the table between them, so he gave Dick his full attention. Belinda picked herself up from the grass, padding lazily over so that she could lay at her human’s feet.

“I was a little older than you when my parents died. We were out at the opera…..”

Dick learnt that night that Bruce had something dark in him. Anger and disgust at the city and the scum of the earth that drove him to do his best, to always be better. Ruxandra nestled in Dick’s hand as Bruce told them all of it. How his parents died in a filthy alley, about Al Ghul, the League of Shadows and the brutal training he put himself through. How he had forced himself to separate from Belinda. All Dick could think about once he finished was;  _I can’t become that_.

Without thinking he climbed out his chair and hugged Bruce. The man went stiff under his touch, Belinda letting out a slight growl at the disturbance.

“Dick, what are you doing?” Bruce's voice was muffled by his shoulder.

“Hugging you,” Dick squeezed tighter as Ruxandra flew around them. Eventually, Bruce relaxed and wrapped his arms around Dick and hesitantly pressed back.

* * *

 

Before he took to the streets for the first time, after four months of training, he needed to do something first. He used the Batcomputer to track down his mother’s clan. He wasn’t surprised to find them in one of the colder regions of Russia, where the winds were high this time of year.

Batman dropped him off in the jet, and Dick pulled his coat around him, making sure to keep Ruxandra safe in the folds from the wind. He walked for miles in the direction of the camp, finding the Witches gathered around a fire that was somehow still burning despite the strength of the wind.

“What are you doing here, boy?” one asked as he approached them.

“I want to go to the Barren Land,” he spoke in the witch language, knowing his pronunciation was perfect. The elderly witches looked at him with evident disbelief, thinking it was a joke, “my mother was the seventh daughter of the seventh daughter. I can survive it.”

One of them stepped forward, looking him up and down, “you are Mary’s boy? What happened to her?”

“She was killed,” Ruxandra emerged from the folds of his jacket, soft snow dusting her crown as the witch’s bird Daemons murmured at her settled form, “murdered.”

“We told her no good would come from the man’s world,” a hawk hissed as it tightened its claws into its human’s arm.

“And what of you?” Another asked, youthful in her appearance but age behind her eyes, “you wish to be one of us?”

“I want to bring justice to my mother. I need to find the man who killed her, and I can’t do that unless we’re separated,” Dick’s voice projected over the cold land. He could  _feel_ that it was cold, but it didn’t bother him. The moon up above was glowing, and Dick wasn’t surprised to find himself glowing with it

“What do you know of justice, boy?” A new one asked, and he recognised the ring of artic flowers that rested a top her head. She was the queen of this clan.

“I know that you have to find it on your own,” Dick replied as politely as he could.

“Mary didn’t want you to learn our ways,”

“She didn’t want to be murdered either,” he bit out in retaliation.

They stood at an impasse before the Queen finally nodded and gestured for him to follow her. The witches parted to allow them through, and even though the wind was strong he could still hear her clearly as they continued to walk in the tundra.

“Can you tell me about the seventh daughters?”

The queen did. She spoke in the same small voice his mother always used when telling a story, one that entrapped him in the journey. Witches were female, but they did birth male children. When a witch bore seven daughters to one man, it was a symbol of the greatest love on the Earth and all the other realms. When the line carried through again to a seventh child, it was a sign of luck and prosperity, of a new dawn.

“I don’t know what your mother told you, Boy,” The witches Daemon spoke directly to them, with cool beady eyes that pinned them in place, “but Witches do not fall in love as easily as humans. They pick only the exceptional males to make love with. Male lives are blinks in our world, but Mary refused to leave him. As the seventh daughter of the seventh daughter, many had hoped your mother would stay with the clan and bring us prosperity. But she fell in love so young, and left us for him too soon.”

The Queen looked out across the tundra, her eyes too old for her youthful face, “we fear it is a sign that bad luck is upon us, with her death coming so young. There’s trouble stirring in the winds,” her breath steamed the air as she sighed, “but her blood is strong in you. Maybe you are a sign of a new dawn.”

“Walk, until you reach the gap in the earth. Keep walking, do not turn around. Do not stop until you return here,” the Queens Daemon commanded.

Ruxandra emerged from his jacket, “but how will he make it back if he can’t turn around?”

“This is the Barren Land. It’s been this way for millennia,” Dick had been with Bruce long enough by now to recognise an ‘I don’t know’ answer evasion, “now go, before the dawn breaks.”

* * *

 

Dick hadn’t been able to describe the Barren Land after he passed through. It was like it didn’t exist, but did at the same time. Too hot, too cold. Too large but too small. All he knew was that once he returned, Ruxandra was able to fly miles away without even the slightest hint of anything pulling her back to him.

“Give our respects to your mothers resting place,” the Queen requested before they left, “and tell her we are sorry.”

* * *

 

“What do you want to be called?” Batman asked as they sat in the cave, “Batboy?”

Ruxandra laughed openly at that. Since their separation, she had become more of her own spirit. Braver, freer, more like she used to be before their parent's death. Belinda swatted at the air where the little bird was floating in annoyance.

“We were thinking Robin,” he looked at the red, black and yellow costume that rested in the glass in front of him.

“Batman and Robin,” Bruce tried it out on his tongue before smiling, “I think we can work with that.”

* * *

 

Being Robin was….amazing. It feels like he’s flying as he swings through Gotham night after night. There’s freedom to it that makes his blood buzz with energy. It’s indescribable. Ruxandra stays in the cave with Belinda whenever Batman takes him out. But he finally understands what she means by the freedom of flying. It’s exhilarating and overwhelming (why was everyone always  _over_ or  _under_ whelmed?).

The people of Gotham begin to fear the Bat more after that. Two vigilantes with no Daemons running around the city, locking up the criminals and stopping gangs. They say the Bat is so protective of the Robin that only the stupid try to fight the boy. Some are more afraid of the boy than the Bat. He can flip around you while laughing and quipping, not even breaking a sweat as he incapacitated you.

“I don’t get paid enough for this,” Was all Jim Gordon said when he saw Robin for the first time, which only made the boy laugh and Batman sigh.

* * *

 

Jim’s daughter Barbara ends up in the majority of Dicks classes. The first time he meets her Ruxandra hides at the sight of her massive Gray Owl Daemon which turned to look at them with yellow beady eyes.

“Apollo, be nice,” Barbara scolded the Daemon who only ruffled his feathers in response, “sorry, he woke up on the wrong side of the perch this morning. I’m Barbara.”

“Dick,”

(Before long Ruxandra is out and fluttering around the stony owl and Dick feels something in his chest that almost makes him feel like he’s glowing under the moon).

* * *

 

Sometimes, when he dreams, he sees them. Sees a twisted mass of bodies, the blood, the Dust. He can feel it on his hands, in his hair, his lungs. And Ruxandra is no longer crested red, she can’t fly with the weight of the blood. She can’t reach him, and there’s a pain in his chest, like a knife being driven into it.

They always wake up in the end, sweating and gasping in sync. After the sixth time it happened since his arrival at Wayne Manor, he gathered the strength to leave the bed and trod down the hall to Bruce’s room. He paced quietly in front of it, arguing in a low voice with Ruxandra over whether or not they should do it (they were ten. They shouldn’t be this scared over nightmares anymore).

Belinda opened the door before either of them could gather the courage to do it. She looked at them before trotting away wordlessly back to the bed. Dick followed behind her, and couldn’t help but smile when Bruce held patted the space on the bed next to him.

“The blood?” Bruce murmured in a voice thick with sleep as he adjusted his pillow.

“How-“

“It’s always the gunshots for me,”

(It doesn’t happen as often after that. But sometimes, a particular patrol will get under his skin, and somehow Bruce always knows to leave his door open)

* * *

 

When Batman drags Robin out to Central City for a meet up with the Flash (really, he’s the fastest man alive, why can’t he come to them?) he’s more than surprised to be greeted by an overzealous man in bright red. Sure, Robins read the files on all of the League, but he’s learnt that some things don’t translate well onto paper (like Superman’s complete farm boy politeness or Green Lanterns inability to recognise that some things shouldn’t be said around a ten year old).

“Hey,” Flash smiled down at him, ignoring Batman who was consulting with Agent A over the comms, “can I get a picture for my nephew? He’s a huge Robin fan-“

Batman looked up from the other side of the roof before Robin could even begin to formulate an answer and said; “No.”

“Killjoy,” Flash’s mouse Daemon squeaked under her breath, and Robin saw Batman’s mouth twitch upwards, and he couldn’t help but laugh.

Robin finds the Flash’s comm number in the file later the night before he goes to bed. He spends a good half hour finding the perfect photo of a red crested robin and edits a domino mask over its face. He sent it with the subject line:  _Don’t Tell Batman_.

In the morning as Alfred drives him to school he checks his email. There’s a photo of Barry Allen, not Flash (really, Dick had heard Bats mutter about  _secret_ identities, but this was ridiculous), holding the photo in a frame while his Daemon posed next to it.

* * *

 

Wonder Woman—or Diana Prince, really, as she stands there in a Gucci gown and wearing heels that could moonlight as weapons—is the one who disapproves of him the most. He swallows as he looks up at her in all her ancient glory, her Daemon’s feathers shining gold under the chandelier light.

“You should not bring a child into a war,” she intoned to Bruce who was adjusting his tie in the mirror. They’re off to some charity event together, playing the faux couple for the vultures in the media.

“I can make my own decisions,” Dick looked her in the eye.

“And why do you do this?” Her Daemon is female and large, something more suited for a poster on freedom than on the shoulder of a stunning woman.

“To make sure other people don’t get hurt like I did,”

Diana frowned at him, “you are too much like him,” she looked to Bruce, who was watching the whole exchange with sharp eyes, “and it will not end well for you.”

(Later that night she returns to the manor to drop off the gown while Bruce retires for the night. Maybe alcohol had softened her tongue or Bruce had lashed some of the cruelness out of her, because she tells him about her home. About the creation of the Amazons and their long lost sisters, who chose to ride the wind instead of fight.

“Do not forget your mother’s blood,” she eyed the glow that danced across his skin, “don’t let this city ruin you as it has ruined Bruce.”)

* * *

 

Roy Harper is interesting to say the least. Bruce had pushed him towards Roy and instructed him to make the rounds. After the fifth, ‘you are so lucky to have Oliver/Bruce take you in’ they made the mutual agreement to escape to the balcony.

Star City was cold this time of year, but it was a thick cold that weighed you down, unlike the crisp biting cold of Gotham. Queen Manor was situated near the bridge, which blinked through the clouds slowly. Roy’s Daemon was settled as well, not uncommon seeing as he was sixteen, but there was something odd about her that he couldn’t decide on.

“You must be so grateful,” Roy mimicked the high octave of the last high society woman who had pinched Dick’s cheeks so hard he was still feeling it. Ruxandra, who had hidden in his coat after the first debacle with a socialite, emerged. Her tiny feet left small marks in the snow on the balcony hand rail, and he watched as Roy eyed the red robin, “Grateful my ass.”

“I think my cheeks are going to bruise,” Dick swept up a handful of snow and held it to his burning cheeks. Ruxandra glared at him when some of the snow brushed her plume.

Roy was still looking at her curiously, head titled to the side slightly as he pulled off his bow-tie, “has she settled already?”

Dick watched as he began attaching his bowtie around his Daemons neck. The goose nipped at his fingers with her sharp teeth, but he avoided them with what looked like practiced ease.

“We’ve been settled since we were nine,” he watched as the Daemon managed to nip her human’s finger, drawing blood. Roy sucked on the wound but didn’t seem in a rush to help his Daemon take off the offending piece of fashion.

Roy simply nodded, “I’ve been stuck with this goose since I was eleven. You could’ve been something  _cool_ ,”

(They both know what happened at those respective ages. The Harper family had been killed in an accident, leaving behind a large fortune and a single son.)

“Don’t bring that up again!” Her voice is husky and thick as she honked in disagreement, “it’s not like I chose this form.”

“Come on, let’s go show Ollie how fashionable you are,” he plucked his Daemon off the rail and mocked in Queens voice, “Not the Armani!”

(Roy sort of becomes a constant presence in his life after that. Oliver Queen, after all, is a business partner of Wayne Industries. They meet at Galas and hide in corners with plates of food while they chat about the haughtiness of the upper class. At night they fight together sometimes, the two of them taking to the roof tops and making their respective mentors groan at their actions).

* * *

 

Catwoman is someone Robin couldn’t understand. She stole from museums, mob bosses and even dared to cross Falcone with a grin on her face. The items she stole always somehow returned to where they belonged; totems to tribes, religious scripts to churches, tapestries to palaces. Batman didn’t even seem particularly inclined to stopping her either.

“Selina,” Batman almost  _sighed_ as he and Robin arrived at the scene of a robbery to see the woman in question surrounded by passed out guards while her black cat Daemon held a silver plate in its jaw.

“Calm down, Bats, they’re only knocked out,” the woman in black Kevlar picked up her Daemon and accepted the totem from him, holding it up to the light, “it’s from the Sion Treasure collection. I thought I’d bring it home.”

“For a price,” Batman added stiffly.

“A good one as well,” she purred as she stepped forward, “I would proposition you for an even better one, but I don’t think this offer is child appropriate.”

Alfred sighed over the comm and Robin just raised an eyebrow at Batman who grunted, “The police will be here in five. You better be gone.”

“You know where I’ll be,”

(Dick wakes up and gets dressed for school the next morning. The only problem is that when he gets to the kitchen, a dark haired woman is already sitting in his spot, lazily teasing her black tabby Daemon with a freshly cut rose from the vase on the table. She’s wearing a silk pyjama shirt monogramed  _B.W_ and a pair of oversized Superman sweatpants that Dick bought Bruce as a joke for his birthday.

“A robin for Robin,” her Daemon eyed Ruxandra with sharp yellow eyes, “how curious. Which came first, the bird or the boy?”

“Selina,” Bruce grumbled as he entered for breakfast, looking more disgruntled than usual, “no philosophical questions before noon.”

When she leaves Dick can see the gleam of the Sion plate in her satchel and decides just not to question any events involving Catwoman.)

 

* * *

 

“Dick?”

The boy in questioned hummed to show that he was listening, tapping his pencil against his lip as he worked on his math question.

“What is Belinda wearing?”

“A bandana,” he didn’t even falter. He knew if he did Bruce would descend on him like a sack of bricks.

“And  _why_ is she wearing a bandana?”

Dick finally looked up from the question. His mentor was standing in his doorway, his Daemon by his side looking rather smug. The black bandana had been tied in a triangle around her neck, the yellow Bat Symbol printed on the fabric resting between her shoulders like a cape.

“Uncle Clark and I bought some when we were in Metropolis,” Dick shrugged, unable to keep the grin off his face, “he bought one for Krypto.”

Krypto was a black lab that acted as Clark Kent’s ‘Daemon.' She was just a well-trained dog disguised to fool humans into thinking she was a Daemon through a glamor charm. That, however, didn’t stop Clark’s affection for the dog.

“I think they’re rather spiffy,” Edwina trotted down the hall, her own Wonder Woman bandana secured around her neck. Alfred simply refused to comment as he followed his Daemon down the hall. Belinda licked at her paw when Bruce looked down at her, clearly wanting her opinion. When he received none he sighed and shook his head before walking away.

Ruxandra began counting down out loud as she flew down to rest on Belinda’s head. By the time she reached twenty the billionaire had returned, his hand clasping a monogramed batman towel in his hand.

“They’re only three dollars at Walmart,”

(They're all surprised when Bruce actually laughs)

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Dick: Red Breasted Robin (hope/new beginnings/connecting wither others)  
> Bruce: Bobcat (Awareness/ strategy /patience)  
> Alfred: Yorkshire Terrier (common sense/ intelligence/ problem solving)  
> Barbara: Gray Owl (Intelligence/protection)  
> Roy Harper: Goose (Bravery/ Determination)


End file.
